For this week's How Does Your Garden Grow I'm sharing photos of my Dad's garden in Norfolk. When we visited this weekend it was choc-a-block with produce and dahlias and more and provided the flowers and greenery for Mum's Harvest Festival flower arrangement.
Up until recently Dad also had an allotment, but now he grows his fruit and veg in the back garden alongside his flowers and more usual back garden accoutrements! This means it's made to work hard but it seems to be doing ok...
There's plenty of runner beans, which is good as they're a family favourite.
And there's still more to come
The onions (these are just some of them) are drying
The pumpkins are ripening in the greenhouse - and check out that ginormous geranium in the background. Dad assures me it's just one plant - the good news is I have some cuttings!
The marrows are as huuuge - and as plentiful - as always
And there's a whole forest of tomatoes
And we haven't even started on the flowers yet... I'll warn you now I couldn't decide which to leave out, so here they are - grab a tea and a biscuit before you start scrolling down...
Let's start with some roses, this one's my favourite of the two:
Some anemones
And the dahlias - oh the dahlias - reds, oranges and pinks
And a hollyhock, on the pink side of things, of course
Plus frilly, full-skirted ballerina-like fuschias
And remember my vintage sign? Well, it's clearly hereditary!
As well as the dahlias which always seem to signal the end of summer, Dad's garden has a couple of more autumnal additions, there's these berries - we've no idea what the plant is, but we know it had a pink flower...
And I'd forgotten about these Lords and Ladies, which we've seen a lot of in National Trust gardens recently. I'm not quite sure what they're doing hiding under the climbing rose, but it's good to see them there.
And finally I'm finishing on a Passion flower - they're favourites of mine anyway, we had one in our garden when we moved in but somewhere along the way we lost it. I keep meaning to replace it but I've not quite got there yet. The reason that this one has made me smile is because it's the cat-equivalent plant, in that this plant prefers to spend time with its neighbours!
It's pretty rampant with plenty of flowers on Dad's side, mostly it's nestled in the winter jasmine but there's also some tendrils coming into the garage. These I think might be encouraged into a pot to see how they like that... I think Dad would like that and I know I most definitely would too!
So that's quite a trip around Dad's garden, and as you can see there's plenty to see at this time of year.